Maine Governor Paul LePage reportedly told a group of Republicans at a fundraising event last week that Obama 'hates white people.'

LePage made the remark on August 12 at a fundraiser for the Maine Republican Party at a house in Belgrade, according to two GOP lawmakers who spoke to the Portland Press Heraldon the condition of anonymity.

LePage allegedly claimed that the president has avoided talking about his biracial heritage 'because he hates white people.'

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Share

Rick Bennett, the newly elected chairman of the Maine Republican Party, told the Bangor Daily News that LePage made comments about President Obama and race at the fundraiser.

'[Gov. LePage] said President Obama had an opportunity to unify the country on race, but didn’t do anything,' he said. But Bennett said he didn't hear LePage explicitly say that Obama 'hates white people.'

LePage and his wife Ann wave to a crowd during the laying of wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery in December 2012

The Press Herald points out that LePage has a history of making controversial statements.

In January 2011, he told the NAACP to 'kiss [his] but' after he declined an invititation to an event that the group was hosting in Portland.

A few months earlier, just before he was elected governor, he told a public forum: 'As your governor, you're going to be seeing a lot of me on the front page, saying "Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell."'

He has also compared the Internal Revenue Service to the Nazi police and has claimed that Maine Assistant Senate Majority Leader Troy Jackson would be 'the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.'